


Nonverbal Communication

by princeofsharks, theDovahkiin (Trebla)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: ASL, Asperger Syndrome, Autism, Deaf Character, Dysfunctional Family, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-09 12:25:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princeofsharks/pseuds/princeofsharks, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trebla/pseuds/theDovahkiin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I am seven years old. I like the color orange a lot and robots. My name is Dirk Strider and I have Asperger Syndrome. Whatever that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Color Orange

I am seven years old. I like the color orange a lot, and robots.

  
I use big words that confuse the other kids in my class but that’s okay because my brother says it’s just because they aren’t as smart as me.

  
My teacher makes me share my toys at playtime which makes me scream and shout because they are mine and I don’t understand why I have to give them away.

  
Sometimes I make people angry by what I say or do but I think it’s just because I’m smarter and so I like to laugh at them to myself and think about horses and puppets and the color orange.

  
I hate it when people raise their voices at me, which happens a lot but never at home because my big brother never raises his voice or touches me unlike the kids at school.

  
I go to bed every single night at exactly 8:48 because all the numbers are even and have an even least common multiple. I like numbers.

  
I hate it when I talk and the other kids just stare or laugh or touch me which makes me yell and hit and cry and then the teacher just raises her voice at me so I lay down and curl up until they stop.

  
This happens a lot. More times than I can count and I like numbers so that is odd.

  
And I hate sitting outside my first grade teacher's room on this chair because there is only one of them and I only like things in even numbers or divisible by five. I sit on the floor instead.

  
My brother is inside the room talking to my teacher as he has been for the past one hour, forty five minutes and six seconds. I am good with numbers and telling time. I like numbers especially even ones or ones divisible by five.

  
I can name all 196 countries in the world and who leads them and I am learning all the territories and colonies too. I know a lot about bugs and stars and robots but not so much about people.

  
I wear a watch on my left wrist with a robot on it. I had to get it fixed after getting it on my sixth birthday. It was broken. One arm was longer than the other which I didn’t like at all because I like things the same. My brother fixed the arms and painted them orange so it’s not broken anymore. It’s my secret treasure because only I can tell time on it. Everyone else uses broken watches or clocks for some reason which confuses me.

  
I have a hard time focusing. It isn’t that I can’t focus I just focus too hard and for too long and my brain starts cycling and I get a headache and start to think a lot like I am now so I just think about robots or the color orange instead.

  
But sometimes when I can’t stop the cycling I start speaking in my secret silent way. I use my hands and make all sorts of motions and talk and talk and talk about whatever upsets me and this way no one knows what I’m saying but me and that’s good and I like it.

  
I’m good at remembering things. I remember what I ate for breakfast and how many minutes and seconds it took me to brush my teeth this morning and the green shoes with the black scuff on them that the lady from the bus stop was wearing when my brother was taking me to school. My brother says he never needs a camera as long as he has me around.

 

I hate it when my food touches or when anyone touches me. I hate it when people look at me too long or when they say things that don’t make sense, a lot of what people say to me doesn’t make sense, my brother says it’s because I’m too smart for them but that doesn’t make sense either.

  
People confuse me a lot, but I don’t hate them. Not really.

  
I hate how they all confuse me and say confusing things. I hate lies and being touched and I always tell the truth. I like to draw and make music and watch movies and I like the color orange.

  
I am seven years old. I like the color orange a lot, and robots.

  
My brother comes out of the room and seems upset so he puts on his shades and extends his fist to me. I bump mine against his. This is our secret handshake and I don’t mind the touching so much since he’s my brother. He walks beside me out to the car and is going on and on using weird words I don’t know and have never heard of before but since it’s my big brother they must be real words because he never lies.

  
We are getting in the car now. My big brother puts on piano music and sets the volume at 22 because it’s an even number. He talks and talks and I start to fidget because I’m not used to all this talking. My clothes feel tight now and I’m getting nervous because he mentions a doctor and I hate the doctor because all they do is touch and ask questions that I hate answering and now I’m starting to sweat and my brother is going on and on with these weird words.

  
He is trying to explain what the teacher talked to him about and why I like my even numbers and robots and big words and bugs and horses and puppets.

  
He says a strange thing to me. He says I won’t have to go to school for a few days while we see doctors and that next week I’ll go to a different school which I don’t like one bit because I hate change it isn’t stationary and too confusing. He spells out the words that is the cause of this change and I think I hate those words and those words are me so I start to hate me too because I’m not even or orange or a robot or time or a star.

  
I am seven years old. I like the color orange a lot and robots. My name is Dirk Strider and I have Asperger Syndrome. Whatever that is.


	2. April 25

    The date was April 25th. You know, not too hot, not too cold. All you really need is a light jacket. We had been working up to this moment for twelve months. Twelve months of research. Twelve months of planning. Twelve months of saving every fucking penny we got our hands on. Twelve months of waiting, and hoping.  
  
    We were the perfect age for this. I was 24 and John was 22. We weren’t too old and yet we were old enough to be taken seriously about this. All that paperwork was bullshit, though. I had nothing to do with it. John just laughed at my dismay as he went about collecting our tax records and medical histories.  
  
    We had wanted this taken care of a lot sooner, but the little tyke's mom was an addict who decided last-minute to get clean. That lasted all of two months before he was taken by child services and thrown into some foster home. They never even called us. Sure, I could have handled his mom deciding to straighten up and be a fucking parent, but the agency fucking over the guys who waited months to meet the little asshole? Bullshit. He was a year old by the time we got the call asking if we were still interested. Of course we were. I remember John bawling his eyes out when he got off the phone. I just held him tight and shed a tear or two myself.  
  
    That’s when it began. The waiting, the saving, and the praying. We saved all the money we could. At the time, I worked in music, and by music I mean I had some shit job at a music store. John was doing good though. He was just starting out as a biologist at the local museum. We scraped by. I mean, twenty thousand dollars doesn’t just fall from the damn sky. 

    The worst part was getting his room ready. John, of course, thought blue would be best, but me? I was digging some red for the little man. In the end we decided on orange. We got a white crib for the room, and above it hung a rocket ship mobile. There was a small couch, too. You know, in case the kid couldn’t sleep and needed his daddies. Man, you should have seen us after we finished painting. Were we human or were we giant fucking carrots? We just don’t know.  
  
    As I was saying, it was April 25th when we first met the little guy. He was two years and four months old. He had a mop of blonde hair that stuck up in every direction. He was sound asleep when the social worker brought him over. Little dude must have tuckered himself on the long car ride here. She went over everything once more before handing him to John and saying goodbye. I hadn’t seen John that happy since our wedding day, when he finally became Mr. Johnathan Strider.  
  
    I walked with him to the kid's room and watched as he gently set him in his crib, humming a lullaby as he did so.  
  
    “I think we should get a keyboard in here so I can play to him sometimes,” John said, smiling down into the crib. His eyes lit up. "Maybe I could teach him how to play!"  
  
    “Babe, he’s a baby, not a band director,” I joked teasingly from the couch. "He literally just got here, shouldn't you at least wait until the tyke can talk before pushing all your unfulfilled hopes and dreams on him?" John snorted and stuck his tongue out at me, but I could still see he was alight with excitement. To see him this happy was...a gift beyond words, even for me. After changing into our own pajamas- well, John did. Real men don't wear goddamn pajamas, and I am a very real fucking man- we brought blankets and pillows and cuddled up on the couch. There, we sat in silence. Not the awkward kind or the kind that makes you wish you were a better conversationalist. Just pure, peaceful quiet. After almost two years he was finally ours. Our little Dirkland Johnathan.

    My name is Dave Strider, and I just became a parent. Whatever that means.


	3. 88

When I was small I had two big brothers. There was my brother and then there was Blue.

I liked Blue. He had soft hair and long fingers and funny teeth and big glasses.

He played piano for me a lot. I like piano. All the keys are black and white and organized in patterns, and I like patterns. Blue told me that it has 88 keys, and that made me really happy because I like even numbers and 88 is an even number. 8 is also my favorite number because if you cut it in half, it still looks the same. Also it’s an even number. So 88 is especially good because it has two eights, not one, and two is an even number as well.

Blue also always cooked for me and made sure my food never touched and would read to me when I was falling asleep. Blue was good at baking and he’d always make me cookies shaped like horses and let me ice them and of course I always made mine orange.

He would smile at me often but his eyes had water in them which I didn’t understand because they were not rain clouds or the shower or a garden hose. And he couldn’t be crying because you only did that when you were sad and if he was smiling he shouldn’t be sad because that would be lying and Blue never tells lies. I asked Dave about it and he said that Blue was really happy to see me, and his happiness turned into liquid which came out of his eyes. I said that was stupid and impossible, because emotions weren’t things you could touch. Dave just shrugged and patted my head, which I didn’t like because I don’t like when people touch my hair.

My big brother said Blue was his best friend and that they had been best friends for a long time before I was even born.

I don’t have friends so this confused me.

Blue worked at a museum and he’d take my brother and me there sometimes and I think that’s where I started liking robots. There was a big exhibit on robotics and I liked that a lot.

I understand robots. They are told to do something and they do it and they don’t have emotions and they don’t argue or touch you when you don’t want to be touched and I like robots a lot because they’re cold and metal and smooth and sometimes they’re even the color orange. I like the color orange.

Blue moved away though which I didn’t like one bit because I don’t like things changing.

He wanted to take me with him but I refused. I don’t like the idea of leaving home either.

I like my big boy bed and my toys and my books and my orange walls and the little lines by the kitchen door that are from my big brother marking my height and I like my white bookshelf and my white dresser in my orange room and I like my puppet and the piano in the living room and I don’t want to leave at all and remembering that is scaring me and my heart is beating again and so I think I’ll just think about the color orange instead.

 


	4. God Hates Fags

    He never did call either of us dad. I think that’s what hurt John the most. We had all these hopes and dreams about being parents and dads and having a real family, and yet, if Dirk did speak to us, he referred to us as “Blue” and “Red”. I noticed something else, though. He was always talking with his hands. His fingers moved one way when he was asking for John to come read to him and another when he wanted me to play with him. He used his little motions more than words. It became like a secret language between us.

****

    The first time he cried when we was held was at the age of four. Sure, we had noticed the kid had some odd quirks. He liked things in a very specific, familiar way. He didn’t seem to comprehend the types of things a normal four year old would. He could already read and write but would barely speak and didn’t seem to understand the concept of John and I being his parents. Now, by no means was he some overzealous homophobe in the making, drawing up “God Hates Fags” signs in his room with the “G” drawn backwards. It was relationships as a whole that he didn’t understand, never mind one so peculiar to him. He would throw tantrums at the sight of John and I being intimate in any way. It seemed to make him intensely uncomfortable. Actually, any sort of contact at all seemed to freak the little dude out, with himself or other people. The idea of marriage was as foreign to him as vaginas were to me. The whole ordeal broke John’s gay-ass little heart.

****

    It was one morning when John had picked him up out of his crib- Dirk was firmly refusing to switch to a big boy bed despite how quick the little shit was outgrowing his baby jail- and he began to fuss. He threw punches and screamed and kicked until I finally came in to see what was wrong. He had the palm of his right hand touching his chest. Thump thump. Thump thump. He was mimicking the beats of his heart. He was a smart little guy, smart enough to notice how his heart rate sped up when he was afraid. This was our secret language- “Help me Red I’m scared please save me make my chest stop this pounding”- his small hands screamed, tapping rapidly on his chest.

****

    I calmed him down by giving him his favorite toy. It was this weird-ass puppet my brother gave him for his third birthday. It was his “Li’l Cal,” as Dirk called it. John and I went to the living room to talk. We both knew something needed to be done, but neither of us realized how drastic the measures would have to be to keep our son happy.

****

    The little man came out of his room after about ten minutes, weird-ass puppet around his shoulders. He didn’t look up once, just walked over to the couch and stared at his feet. He stood in front of John and extended his hand, fingers stretched wide.

****

    “Blue,” he said quietly as he looked up. He took John’s hand by the wrist and placed it against his own chest. John placed his opposite hand on Dirk’s and with a crack and his voice and tears in his eyes, he responded.

****

    “Yeah Dirky, it’s me. Blue.” And it was in that moment that I realized it. To John, Dirk was silent. He hands didn’t scream or speak. They were just the ticks and fidgets of a seriously ill kid. Maybe it was the lonely childhood I spent with nothing but a brother who worked more than let me hear him. Maybe it was the way I grew up pretty much isolated that let me speak back. Whatever it was, John didn’t understand. And he probably never would.

****

     My husband was right about one thing, though. Kid was a fucking musical prodigy. Maybe not with the piano just yet, but he could own rhythms . He was born to be a drummer. Any song he heard he could memorize the beats and for days we would hear him tapping them out on the table with his little fingers or on the floor as he walked in step to the music in his odd little mind. When he got nervous or confused, which happened more often than not, you’d see those little hands drum out the beats of Mozart or Sousa or even Drake if he was feeling adventurous. This was another part of our little language.

****

     We had checks from time to time from the agency, just to make sure everything was well and we hadn’t fed the little shit to sharks yet. It was Dirk’s social worker that first suggested he may be autistic or retarded or god fucking knows what. She tried and tried to get us a counselor for him, but I refused, because Dirk hated doctors or answering questions. Even the thought of meeting a stranger set his hands into that rhythmic tapping on his chest. I could hear him loud and clear. He was having none of our doctor bullshit.

****

    He was five when John left. Don’t jump to conclusions, we didn’t split. He could never get rid of me that easily. He got offered a job at some lab on the other side of the city. He would still work at the museum part time, but this was a big chance for him. We tried to move as a family, but Dirk always did hate change. We went through apartment after apartment, trying to convince and bribe the kid, but he would just twist and twirl those fingers and cry and sometimes even kick. So, in the end, it was John who gave in. He would still come stay with us every weekend, but a 45 minute subway trip every day was just going to be too hard with the new job.

    Dirk loved when his Blue visited him. He would bring him spare parts from the lab to use in his inventions and he’d bake cookies with him, and always let Dirk do the icing. John would play piano for him, and sometimes Dirk would try to play too. Blondie was talking a bit more at this point. He was still a little man of few words, it was true, but he now understood he had to use his big boy words to get what he wanted from Blue. Blue didn’t understand his secret language, so the little guy learned to ask him verbally, which was a huge-ass step for both of them.

****

    He was taking a nap on my bed the day we decided to blindside his shit and ditch the crib. We got him a cool little bed that had his orange sheets and all his toys on top.

    I’d never heard a more bloodcurdling scream than when he first stepped foot into his room. He was pissed as hell, man.

****

    Shit was getting real. He screamed and cried and ripped books and toys from his shelves and threw all his clothes from his drawers and even started to beat himself on the head until finally, he either didn’t have the energy to care anymore or didn’t have the strength to carry on. Little dude wouldn’t even go near the bed, and he sure as hell wouldn’t touch that shit. He slept on the floor for about a week before he finally gave in. We had put Li’l Cal on his bed, and he realized if he didn’t man up his buddy was gone for good.

****  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys it's Princey! If you want to be kept updated regularly as well as know what's going on with this fic I suggest following me on tumblr! The url is just princeofsharks! Plus I'd love for you to message me there with any suggestions, complaints, or corrections! Thanks for reading! P-man out!


End file.
